80 Years Ago: Essex, Arriving

Posted on by Leave a comment

In perhaps the most welcomed addition to any fleet, ever, some 80 years ago today on New Year’s Eve 1942, the U.S. Navy changed the status of USS Essex (CV-9) to “in commission.”

The brand-new USS Essex (CV-9) underway at 1615 hrs. during May 1943, in position 37 05’N, 74 15’E, as photographed from a blimp from squadron ZP-14. Among the aircraft parked on her flight deck are 24 SBD scout bombers (parked aft), about 11 F6F fighters (parked in after part of the midships area) and about 18 TBF/TBM torpedo planes (parked amidships). 80-G-68097

The new 27,000-ton 872-foot fleet carrier, the first of a planned 32-ship class– the numerically largest envisioned in the history of full-sized flattops– had been rushed to be sure. Laid down on 28 April 1941 at Newport News while the country was in a cautious neutrality period in the Second World War, by the time she was commissioned 20 months later the Navy had seen its pre-war carrier force whittled down from seven to just three after the loss of USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Yorktown (CV-5), USS Hornet (CV-8) and USS Wasp (CV-7), sunk in just a five-month period between May and September 1942 in action against the Japanese.

While the Navy had rushed a new class of light carriers from converted cruiser hulls and escort carriers using first fleet oilers then merchant hulls into service and even borrowed the occasional armored-deck flattop from the British, Essex and her sisters were needed for fast fleet operations of the sort the CVLs and CVEs just weren’t suited.

And Essex would be very busy over the next 31 years, fighting in two hot and one cold wars, and undergoing a radical conversion to allow her to operate aircraft of types unimagined in 1942. 

USS Essex (CV 9) during Okinawa operations, 20 May 1945. 80-G-373816

USS Essex (CV 9) underway during her first Korean War deployment, circa August 1951-March 1952. Two F2H-2 Banshees of Fighter Squadron 172 (VF-172) are flying by in the foreground, preparing to land. The nearest plane is Bureau # 124954. The other is probably Bu # 124969. NH 97270

USS Essex takes spray over the bow while steaming in heavy seas, 12 January 1960. Note S2F type airplane at the rear of the flight deck, with its engines turning. Other planes visible, amidships, including AD and F4D types. NH 98517

Before she was stricken from the Navy List in 1973, Essex received the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars for World War II service then add 4 battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation for Korean war service, in addition to helping hold the line throughout two decades of the Cold War against the Soviets.

That kick, tho

Posted on by Leave a comment

I love both war movies and sports movies so it should come as no surprise that 1981’s “Victory,” directed by the great John Huston (shortly after he did one of my favorite films of all time, the Kipling tale, “The Man Who Would Be King”), in which a team of scratch Allied soccer players drawn from across numerous German stalags during WWII to play an elite German team, is high on my list.

Starring a number of international World Cup-level footballers with acting from the likes of Sir Michael Cain up front and Max Von Sydow’s Major Karl von Steiner adding just enough honor to the opposition, the film is very loosely based on the often over-told semi-true story of the “Death Match” between Ukrainian and German teams in occupied Ukraine in 1942.

However, the big guns on the field are brought by Brazilian football phenom, Pele, who was in his 40s when “Victory” was filmed and had retired from the sport already, with three World Cup wins in his rearview– a record not bested to this day.

Still, Pele was both funny and delivered a perfect bicycle kick photographed by English cinematographer Gerry Fisher (of “Aces High” fame.)

Truly art in sport.

When I saw the film as a kid, I was playing soccer in a Y8 league and, every time I put on my cleats for my next five years in the sport, I thought of “Victory.” Much later in life, while coaching it for my kids’ teams, watching it at team parties was required, although I will admit, it was more of an acquired taste!

Thank you, Pele,

That great shooting range in the sky

Posted on by Leave a comment

Among those lost to the gun community in 2022:

Aaron Hogue — One of the managing owners of Hogue Grips and son of Guy Hogue, the company’s founder, Aaron died when the jet he was piloting in the National Championship Races at Reno crashed. 

Peter J. “Pete” Hylenski — A gifted design engineer who left his mark with Wildey, Winchester, and Kimber, Hylenski was known as “Mr. Model 70” as he was the long-term Model 70 Rifle Design Engineer during the era that saw the return of the “pre-’64” type Model 70 control-round feed action. Hylenski passed away on March 29, 2022, aged 77.

Thomas Devine Smith — A Texas sports shooter and Air Force officer, Smith competed in the 50-meter pistol event at the 1964 Summer Olympics before winning two gold medals at the 1963 Pan American Games. He set and broke numerous pistol records in his career, some of which still stand even decades later. He also survived his plane breaking up in-flight, landing on snow-covered Mt. Helmos in Greece without a parachute, surviving the fall. Colonel Smith died in May, aged 90. 

George Trulock — Founder of the shotgun choke empire that bears his name– and is OEM for numerous manufacturers– George Trulock was a legend in the gun industry. He passed in June and is remembered by his company as “a visionary and a creative genius” as well as an “amazing human being.” 

The rest of the list is in my column at Guns.com.

Going Behind the Scenes at S&W

Posted on by Leave a comment

In the Select Fire series over at Guns.com that I host, I really dig factory tours of gunmakers as each will have a different way to run a shop. Speaking to this, I recently got to visit Smith & Wesson’s historic Springfield, Massachusetts factory to see what goes into making some of the finest revolvers in the world.

Celebrating 170 years in the firearms industry, the company gets its name from the 1852 partnership between Horace Smith and D.B. Wesson. Just two years later, the company debuted the .41 Magazine Pistol, best known as “The Volcanic” — the first repeating American firearm capable of successfully using a fully self-contained cartridge. By 1857, S&W was producing the Model 1 and Model 3 revolver, guns that soon marched off to war and one that Mark Twain carried in his early travels in the West, writing in his 1872 book, “Roughing It,” that, “I thought it was grand.”

Fast forward to the present and Smith is still rocking and rolling. While they have made moves to shift black rifle construction and headquarters to a new factory in Tennessee, the company’s legacy plant in Springfield is still working around the clock and will continue to house its traditional revolver line.

With that, I got the rundown on the process from beginning to end and cover it in detail in the above 18-minute factory tour.

One thing I noticed during our time in Springfield was that, especially when it comes to revolver work, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Check out these images of S&W workers from 1956 compared to ones on the line today. While the machines and safety equipment have been upgraded, the invaluable human factors of attention to detail and quality endure, despite the generational change.

Anyway, the 18-minute tour is here:

The longest-serving GPMG

Posted on by Leave a comment

Spotted in Ukraine near Chernihiv on Christmas Day: the ever-lasting Pulemyot Maxima PM1910.

Note the timber has been cut out to accommodate the carriage and the 250-round belt at the ready in the can to the right. Machine guns in relatively sheltered fixed positions with interlocking fire are a source of real estate control all their own.

As noted by Denis Winter in his 2014 work, Death’s Men: Soldiers Of The Great War: 
 
On its tripod the machine gun became a nerveless weapon; the human factor of chattering teeth, dripping sweat, and feces in a man’s pants was eliminated. A terror-stricken man could fire his machine gun accurately even by night.

Set up in a sustained fire role with plenty of ammo, thickly greased moving internals, and water for the jacket, such a heavy machine gun can still be as effective in a strong point as it was in 1914– at least until the bunker catches a 125mm HE round from a T-72 or a lucky hit from an RPG or three.

Developed directly from the water-cooled Vickers (Maxim) 08 .303, the Russian-made variant by Pulitov had minor changes beyond its 7.62x54r chambering and sights graduated in arshins rather than yards (the latter something the Soviets would change to meters in the 1920s).

 

The 1910 Maxim going for a drag

Fitted with a unique sled/two-wheeled shielded cart to a design by one Mr. Sokolov and often seen with an enlarged “snow” or “tractor” cap to the radiator, for obvious reasons, in all the Tsar and Soviets would make more than 175,000 PM1910s through 1945, leaving little wonder that they still pop up from time to time.

Twin-linked Maxim guns, with red dot sight, Ukrainian Conflict.

It has far outlived all of its water-cooled “Emma Gee” contemporaries, the Lewis Gun, assorted Vickers models, the various German Spandaus, and the M1917, all of which had been retired since the 1960s, even from reserve and third-world use.

With that, Jonathan Ferguson over at the Royal Armouries walks you through a PM1910 they have in the collection.

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022: Spyron

Posted on by 2 comments

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022: Spyron

Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum Photo.

Above we see the Tambor-class fleet submarine USS Gudgeon (SS-211), her glad rags flying, in the Mare Island Channel after her launching at Mare Island on 25 January 1941. Commissioned just three months later, her peacetime service would soon be over and she would be in the thick of the upcoming war with the Japanese, sinking the first of the Empire’s warships to be claimed by the U.S. Navy. However, the 307-foot boat would also kick off the American equivalent of the Tokyo Express, leaving Freemantle some 80 years ago this week, bound for the Japanese-occupied Philipines with a very important cargo.

As detailed in Edward Dissette’s Guerrilla Submarines:

Two days earlier the sub had taken aboard a ton of special gear for a landing party to be transported under secret orders to Mindanao and Panay, two major islands in the Philipines. All gear, except gasoline in 5-gallon cans, had been stowed under the floor plates in the forward torpedo room. The gasoline was stored in the escape trunk, where it was safely sealed off from the rest of the ship.

The cargo was pecuilar. Besides the obvious radio equipment, small arms, ammo, and medical equipment, there were also supplies of paper matchbooks and bags of wheat flour– the latter to be used to make communion wafers. To this was added three inflatable boats, stowed deflated below deck, and an 18-foot wooden dingy, strapped– to the skipper’s great frustration– to the top of the hull by her aft 3″/50 deck gun.

After an inspection by RADM Charles A. Lockwood (COMSUBSOWESPAC), a group of seven men arrived:

“Filipino mess boys, neatly attired in clean, faded dungarees, white mess jackets, and white hats, filed aboard and saluted smartly. Ashore a kookaburra bird brayed its raucous jackass laugh as if it found seven mess boys boarding a submarine a funny sight, which it would have been under normal circumstances.”

Rather than common Philipino stewards, a familiar sight on the old Asiatic Fleet’s destroyers and cruisers, the seven men were hastily trained commandos returning to their homeland under the command of Maj. Jesús Antonio Villamor, late of the Philippine Army Air Corps and, following his epic escape from the islands after the fall of Manila, now an intelligence officer tasked with contacting the scattered resistance groups in the Philippines and making them a cohesive force that could help retake the islands.

Villamor, 28, was already a bonafide hero, having flown his obsolete P-26 Peashooter against Japanese Zeroes in December 1941, reportedly downing two of the fighters, and making his way to Australia after the Allied collapse. He was decorated by Dugout Dug with the Distinguished Service Cross– right before he donned a mess boy’s uniform and set sail to return back home.

Using Spanish charts last updated in 1829, Gudgeon crept in close enough for Villamor and his commandos to make for shore at Catmon Point on the late night of 14 January 1943, ultimately just taking two rafts and electing to leave behind the dingy and the cranky third raft along with the gear they could not carry.

A second such mission was carried out by sistership USS Tambor (SS 198) on 5 March at Mindanao.

Gudgeon would return in April, landing 6,000 pounds of equipment and a four-man team commanded by 2LT Torribio Crespo, a U.S. Army officer of Philipino descent. The gear and commandos arrived in Panay to support Lt. Col. Peralta’s growing battalion-sized guerilla band.

And so began the long-running submarine resupply effort in the Philipines.

Instead of the airdrops frequently seen in Europe from SOE and OSS, the Navy organized an effort by Tagalog-speaking LCDR Charles “Chick” Parsons, an officer well aware of the PI coastal waters, to supply the insurgents with vital material. Parsons’s “Spy Squadron” of 19 submarines delivered 1,325 tons of supplies in at least 41 missions to the guerrillas between Gudgeon’s initial sortie in December 1942 and when USS Stingray (SS-186) landed 35 tons of supplies off Tongehatan Point on New Years Day 1945, with an emphasis on medicine, weapons, ammunition, and radio gear.

Salmon class subs USS Stingray (SS-186), foreground Operating in formation with other submarines, during Battle Force exercises, circa 1939. The other three submarines are (from left to right): Seal (SS-183); Salmon (SS-182) and Sturgeon (SS-187). Collection of Vice-Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Retired). NH 77086

The cargo got weirder and weirder, including propaganda items such as cigarettes, chocolates, and gum whose packages were stamped with big “Made in USA” and “I Shall Return” logos, with the concept that they would unnerve the Japanese to find such trash blowing down the streets in front of their barracks.

5-gallon cans of MacArthur swag, ranging from hotel soaps to pencils, matchbooks, and playing cards, all with “I Shall Return” were landed along with the commando training teams

Added to this were clothing and shoes to outfit ragged guerillas. Flashlights, batteries, binoculars, magazines, books, playing cards, typewriter ribbon, sewing needles– just about everything you could think of to win hearts and minds in remote areas under occupations and cut off from consumer goods.

Guerilla Situation Southeast Luzon, as of March 15, 1945, as reported by U.S. Sixth Army. Notes include Philippine-led units and their U.S.-supplied weapons. They detail at least four battalion-sized elements and eight company-sized groups. (“Maj. Barros 400 rifles 30 MGS, Faustino 400 rifles, Sandico 10 rifles 2 mortars 2 bazookas, Monella 80 rifles, Gov Escudero 300 rifles 19 bazookas 10 pistols, et. al”). Note that these are just the ones the HQ was aware of and in contact with, as there were certainly dozens of smaller partisan groups floating around outside of the communication chain.

“Padre kits,” consisting of five-gallon kerosene tins filled with wheat flour and several small bottles of Mass wine with eyedroppers attached– to be delivered to parishes across the islands to help maintain morale– were also smuggled in.

Each bundle had to be sealed in waterproof boxes and cans, no larger than 23 inches at any point so they could fit through the sub’s hatches. Radio kits took up four boxes and included not only the transmitter/receiver but also a 40-foot antenna in sections, batteries, and enough spare parts to keep everything glowing for at least a year.

The Philippine General Radio Net was Developed during the Japanese Occupation, as of 9 October 1944. Most of these radio kits had been brought into the islands via submarines from Australia

They also delivered 331 agents and officers of all sorts– including Parsons, who spent most of 1943 in and out of the islands, piecing together the resistance network.

Philippines Resistance Forces. Via the National Defense University Press.

Intelligence Agent Insertions Into the Philippines, 1943-1944. Via the National Defense University Press.

Intelligence Agent Insertions Into the Philippines, 1943-1944 (SPYRON) Via the National Defense University Press.

The subs also exfiltrated 472 individuals, including downed aircrews, American civilians trapped in the islands during the 1942 withdrawal, and key personnel. This included at least one German and three Japanese POWs. USS Angler (SS-240), in March 1944, evacuated a record 58 U.S. citizens, including women and children, from Panay back to Darwin– talk about cramped for a 311-foot submarine!

While the fleet boats could only carry a few tons of cargo and a 6-7 person team, the two huge V-class cruising subs, USS Nautilus (SS-168) and USS Narwhal (SS-167), stripped to the bone and only armed with the 10 torpedoes in their tubes for self-defense, could carry a whopping 92 tons of cargo and 25 or more men, earning them the nicknames of “Percherons of the deep.” 

To get a feel for how big these subs were, here we see the Nautilus (SS-168) photographed from her sister ship, the Narwhal (SS-167). Photo credit: Navsource.

In all, by the time MacArthur finally “returned” in October 1944, the Philippine insurgency had grown to an estimated 255,000 guerrillas in the field, organized in 10 military districts, who controlled 800 of 1,000 municipalities in the country as well as the lion’s share of the countryside. It was an effort every bit as large and complex as that shown by the Partisans in Yugoslavia or the French Resistance.

Shortly after MacArthur started operations in Leyte, the Navy was able to land supplies directly via amphibious assault ships and flying boats, while the Army was able to begin airdrops from cargo planes and bombers. 

Nonetheless, it was the submarine delivery service of Chick Parsons and company that got to that point. 

The breakdown of the 41 supply runs by boat:

USS Bowfin (SS-287) (Balao class): 9 runs
USS Narwhal: 9 runs
USS Nautilus: 6 runs
USS Stingray (SS-186) (Salmon class): 5 runs
*USS Trout (SS-202) (Tambor class): 2 runs
USS Redfin (SS-272) (Gato class): 2 runs
USS Gar (SS-206) (Tambor class): 2 runs
USS Gudgeon: 2 runs
*USS Seawolf (SS 197) (Sargo class): 2 runs
One each: USS Angler, USS Crevalle, USS Harder, USS Cero, USS Blackfin, USS Gunnell, USS Hake, USS Ray, USS Grayling, USS Tambor.

These *subs had seen the Philippines in a previous effort, the submerged blockade run into besieged Corregidor between January and May 1942. Carrying 144 tons of antimalarial drugs, small arms and anti-aircraft ammunition, and diesel for the island fortresses generators, they unloaded these under cover of night and then evacuated the Philippines national treasury, 185 key personnel, codes, and vital records that could not fall into Japanese hands– along with 58 torpedos and four tons of submarine spare parts to continue operations from Java and Australia. On both the entry and exit they had to evade destroyer and aerial patrols, weave through minefields and navigate using primitive tools and often inaccurate charts, typically just surfacing at night.

It was hazardous work.

Seawolf did not make her planned 6 October 1944 landing on her second trip under Spyron taskings and was listed overdue as of that date– the only submarine lost during the operations. Likewise, Gudgeon would be lost at sea on or around 18 April 1944 while Trout and Harder would also be lost that year while on patrol. Grayling (SS-209) was lost on patrol off Manila in 1943.

Their names here are inscribed on a memorial at the USS Albacore Museum in New Hampshire. (Photo: Chris Eger)

Epilogue

Today, Bowfin, which conducted no less than nine runs to support the partisan archipelago of the Pacific– tying for first place– is preserved as a museum in Hawaii, and recently just completed a dry dock period to keep her around for future generations.

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

To Carry a Trauma Kit, or Not?

Posted on by Leave a comment

While I have carried a medical kit on me for most of the past decade or so– ever since the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, in which tourniquets had to be improvised from dozens of different sources to save lives– there is a theory, from a legal standpoint, that this could lead to greater liability in a self-defense scenario. While, to each their own, this is some food for thought from a pair of lawyers specializing in the question of if you should pair a trauma kit with your carry gun.

There are many accounts of individuals saving the lives of others because of their fast actions with a trauma kit on hand. So why don’t we recommend self-defenders carry a trauma kit? Armed Attorneys Emily Taylor and Richard Hayes break down the hidden perils of carrying a trauma kit if you also carry a gun for self-defense.

Devil Gear, circa 1860s

Posted on by One comment

While the Union Army during the Civil War numbered a whopping 2,213,000 individuals in service between the regulars, USCT, and myriad of state volunteer units taken on the roles, the peak strength of the U.S. Marine Corps during the conflict only hit 3,860 officers and men, making them one of the smallest units in Federal service– and their uniforms among the rarest today.

Washington, D.C. Six marines with rifles and fixed bayonets at the Navy Yard. LC-DIG-cwpb-04148

Assorted studio portraits of individual Civil War era U.S. Marines in the Liljenquist collection of the Library of Congress.

You’d never know their dress uniforms were brilliant blue with gold-yellow facings and epaulets from the existing photos.

The Horse Soldier, an upscale military antique store in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania– which sold many of the above studio images to the LOC– has just an incredible find in their collection. 

On display (and for sale of course) at the shop. One of the rarest Civil War uniform groups. This Marine Corps uniform group belonged to Private John Hammond and includes his dress coat with epaulets, shako, fatigue cap, trousers, and rarest of the rare, his knapsack marked “USM.”

Hammond was a shoemaker who enlisted in the Marine Corps in Boston to serve four years on May 15, 1861, and served until discharge on August 24, 1865, at the barracks in Boston. His trousers have the marking of the frigate USS Santee, one of Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron’s most active ships, on the pocket.

Ping! Happy 90th Birthday, Garand Patent

Posted on by Leave a comment

On 27 December 1932, the U.S. Patent Office granted Case File No. 1,892,141, for a “Semi-Automatic Rifle” to one John C. Garand, aged 44 of Massachusetts. The rest is history.

The 75-page patent application filled out and filed by Mr. Garand himself is so historical that it is fully digitized in the U.S. National Archives.

Filed in April 1930, it was endorsed by the Secretary of War with W.N. Roach, the Army’s Chief of the Patent Branch of the Ordnance Department, signing the drawing sheets and application forms as Garand’s attorney of record. His address was simply listed as Springfield Armory.

The petition, signed by Garand. (Photo: National Archives)

Among the most captivating pieces of the application were several pages of diagrams, all of which are suitable for framing in any man cave.

Gather ’round the spent brass tree

Posted on by 2 comments

“Echo Company Christmas Tree,” by Maj. John T. Dyer, Jr., USMCR (16 February 1938 – 31 July 2014).

National Museum of The Marine Corps Collection (2012.1001.362)

LT Randy Rule carefully re-linked spent brass cartridges to decorate the tree, topped by a small American flag, for Echo Company (likely of 2/6 Marines), which overlooks Amal Village in Beirut, Lebanon, on 26 December 1983.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »